"And why do you call it 'perception'? Because it perceives, thus it is called 'perception.' What does it perceive? It perceives blue, it perceives yellow, it perceives red, it perceives white. Because it perceives, it is called perception.

"And why do you call them 'fabrications'? Because they fabricate fabricated things, thus they are called 'fabrications.' What do they fabricate as a fabricated thing? For the sake of form-ness, they fabricate form as a fabricated thing. For the sake of feeling-ness, they fabricate feeling as a fabricated thing. For the sake of perception-hood... For the sake of fabrication-hood... For the sake of consciousness-hood, they fabricate consciousness as a fabricated thing. Because they fabricate fabricated things, they are called fabrications. [3]

"And why do you call it 'consciousness'? Because it cognizes, thus it is called consciousness. What does it cognize? It cognizes what is sour, bitter, pungent, sweet, alkaline, non-alkaline, salty, & unsalty. Because it cognizes, it is called consciousness.http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

I always thought that consciousness is label as mere observer or receiver but this sutta interpret it differently, now i'm confuse of the true meaning between consciousness and perception.

However, these piles are best understood, not as objects, but as activities, for an important passage (SN 22.79) defines them in terms of their functions. Form — which covers physical phenomena of all sorts, both within and without the body — wears down or "de-forms." Feeling feels pleasure, pain, and neither pleasure nor pain. Perception labels or identifies objects. Consciousness cognizes the six senses (counting the intellect as the sixth) along with their objects. Of the five khandhas, fabrication is the most complex. Passages in the canon define it as intention, but it includes a wide variety of activities, such as attention, evaluation, and all the active processes of the mind. It is also the most fundamental khandha, for its intentional activity underlies the experience of form, feeling, etc. in the present moment.

barcsimalsi wrote:I always thought that consciousness is label as mere observer or receiver but this sutta interpret it differently, now i'm confuse of the true meaning between consciousness and perception.

barcsimalsi,Here is a sutta that seems to indicate that perception and consciousness can not be separated and understood separately:From MN43

"Feeling, perception, & consciousness are conjoined, friend, not disjoined. It is not possible, having separated them one from another, to delineate the difference among them. For what one feels, that one perceives. What one perceives, that one cognizes. Therefore these qualities are conjoined, not disjoined, and it is not possible, having separated them one from another, to delineate the difference among them."

chownah wrote:barcsimalsi,Here is a sutta that seems to indicate that perception and consciousness can not be separated and understood separately:From MN43

"Feeling, perception, & consciousness are conjoined, friend, not disjoined. It is not possible, having separated them one from another, to delineate the difference among them. For what one feels, that one perceives. What one perceives, that one cognizes. Therefore these qualities are conjoined, not disjoined, and it is not possible, having separated them one from another, to delineate the difference among them."

chownah

Thanks this helped. In one's own analogy, it's likened to a donkey chasing after a carrot hung on its saddle also trying to bite its own tail at the same time, it was an issue that kept me quite confused, and even after somebody kindly pointed out what I ought to have noticed all along, I'm still quite confused being a donkey.

Still, I am my feelings. I am my perceptions. I am my consciousness. Why do I need a Buddha to tell me that I am not a disjoined trinity but actually a conjoined singularity. To begin with, the Buddha taught, feelings are feelings, perceptions are perceptions, consciousness are consciouness, the meditative technique requried one to discern the existences of them, be mindful and aware of them, and that's how we work with them. And after we worked and worked and worked away at them, they actually ain't diseparate, just a conjoined phenomena, that is fine.

It's likened to taking everything out from the basket, counting them, then putting them back again.

So were they always conjoined? Were they ever disjoined?

Now i'm confused again, heh.Thanks though, it was a lovely read.Enjoyed it.Loved it.It is the technical details of the suttas that kept me excited.At least the Buddha bothered to label things that He saw as useful.

In my eyes consciousness is the bare awareness and perception is mainly how this awareness is colored. For example, one person might perceive radish to taste nice while another perceives it to be awful. Also we could wonder if we all perceive the color red in the same way, and things like that. Perception often tricks you into thinking things are one way while they are another way. Consciousness itself can't do this because it is below that level.

I think the MN43 quote is not that you can't understand some differences between perception and consciousness, but that you can't have one without the other. No painting without canvas, that sort of idea. If there was no noticeable difference there would be no reason for the Buddha to have separated the two.

reflection,What you say makes sense to me but when going to Wikipedia and reading about perception and cognition(cognition is what the Buddha said is the function of consciousness) or seems to me that what they are describing is perception as being a preliminary task of a simpler nature and cognition is used for more complex mental processes, perhaps building on perceptions. When I looked at a sutta it said that perception is based on contact and consciousness was based on namarupa which seems to point to what you are saying.......but then in another sutta it describes perception as perceiving visual stimulus while it describes consciousness as cognizing tongue stimulants.......this seems to make it more or less a toss-up. I do have a theory that the Buddha lived in a time when the mechanics of the senses were not well understood and this is why "form" is used as the sense object for the eye....at that time people did not know about optics and how the eye worked and at least among early Greek philosophers there were different theories about how vision worked......so the Buddha used the current ideas of his time which might very well have been that it actually was form which stimulated the eye. Pali dictionaries give two definitions for form; one as the visual object and one as the "physical manifestation" for lack of a better word......I'm wondering what's is the basis for differentiating the word onto the two meanings....it very well could be that in the buddha's time they did not differentiate it. Similarly, the tongue, since it seems to be the point of origin of speech might very well be taken to be the base or channel for more complex mental processes since speech is a more complex mental process......THIS IS MY VIEW ONLY.

I would be very interested in hearing from a Pali expert as to how the idea of "form" was taken to have two meanings......was it from some text which differentiated between the two meanings or was it someone overlaying more recent scientific understanding.

I would also be interested in knowing how it was decided which Pali word to translate as consciousness and which word to translate as perception.....maybe they got it backwards........I don't know.........chownah

Well, when reading about consciousness and perception, I think we have to look at context also. What is the main reason the Buddha taught them? To explain they are not self, are not owned, not controllable, those sort of things. He didn't teach them to deeply explain the mechanics of senses. So in that perspective it doesn't really matter what we see as consciousness and what we see as perception, as long as we realize, or try to realize, they are all not self. Also if somebody equates consciousness and perception, that still goes. It doesn't really change much.

Consciousness is the mere presence.Presence of what? Presence of perception (red, hot, sour, smooth, etc...). Presence of feeling (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral). If there is no presence then neither perception nor feeling is present. If there is perception and feeling there is presence already there.Thus these three are not disjoined as they co-arise being dependent upon each other. Each of them can be distinguished clearly as different (that is distinction can be clearly made) when they co-arise: we can say this is presence (consciousness), this is perception, this is feeling. However, they can't be separated from each other as entities existing independent of each other.

There is a new thread in the General Theravada section called "The Heretic Sage Interviews. Part 1 of the interviews has a discussion which directly relates to this topic. I found it very interesting....some of it is in untranslated Pali but there is enough English to be worthwhile.....it would be nice if more of the Pali was translated.chownahP.S. It is roughly the second half of the page which directly relates to this topic......the entire page is not too long.chownah

SamKR wrote:Consciousness is the mere presence.Presence of what? Presence of perception (red, hot, sour, smooth, etc...). Presence of feeling (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral). If there is no presence then neither perception nor feeling is present. If there is perception and feeling there is presence already there.

That's an interesting way of looking at it. I experience it more like a sequential process, ie first the "bare" consciousness of an object, then perception and identification, then the feeling response based on that perception.

"I ride tandem with the random, Things don't run the way I planned them, In the humdrum."Peter Gabriel lyric

Spiny Norman wrote:I experience it more like a sequential process, ie first the "bare" consciousness of an object, then perception and identification, then the feeling response based on that perception.

As I understand it, consciousness is not of an object out there (or a subject in here). Consciousness just is - conjoined with associated perception and feeling - arising when the conditions are fulfilled:"Dependent on the eye & forms there arises eye-consciousness. The meeting of the three is contact. From contact as a requisite condition comes feeling."http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

It is true that whenever there is consciousness there necessarily is perception and feeling, and vice versa. But I do not understand how it can be a sequential process that happens in time one after another. Time itself is a concept that is as "illusory" as a subject or an object.

Spiny Norman wrote:I experience it more like a sequential process, ie first the "bare" consciousness of an object, then perception and identification, then the feeling response based on that perception.

As I understand it, consciousness is not of an object out there (or a subject in here). Consciousness just is - conjoined with associated perception and feeling - arising when the conditions are fulfilled:"Dependent on the eye & forms there arises eye-consciousness. The meeting of the three is contact. From contact as a requisite condition comes feeling."http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

It is true that whenever there is consciousness there necessarily is perception and feeling, and vice versa. But I do not understand how it can be a sequential process that happens in time one after another. Time itself is a concept that is as "illusory" as a subject or an object.

I don't think the Mahavedalla Sutta is particularly helpful here, it basically says we can't distinguish between 3 of the aggregates - but in that case, why is the distinction repeatedly made in the suttas?However if you look at the Loka Sutta, it seems to describe a dependently arising sequence: object, sense-organ and sense-consciousness lead to contact, and then contact leads to feeling. http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.htmlI don't see a problem with describing sequential processes, it seems to tie in with experience.And as I understand it, consciousness always involves an object, ie we are always conscious of something.

"I ride tandem with the random, Things don't run the way I planned them, In the humdrum."Peter Gabriel lyric

Spiny Norman wrote:I don't think the Mahavedalla Sutta is particularly helpful here, it basically says we can't distinguish between 3 of the aggregates - but in that case, why is the distinction repeatedly made in the suttas?

The sutta is not saying we cannot distinguish between them. It says these cannot be separated from one another to distinguish them. "It is not possible, having separated them one from another, to delineate the difference among them."

Spiny Norman wrote:However if you look at the Loka Sutta, it seems to describe a dependently arising sequence: object, sense-organ and sense-consciousness lead to contact, and then contact leads to feeling. http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.htmlAnd as I understand it, consciousness always involves an object, ie we are always conscious of something.

I am not sure what you mean by object. If by object you mean "an object out there" existing independent of our experience, then I don't agree.But if by object you mean rupa then yes the Buddha said "Dependent on the eye & forms there arises eye-consciousness...".

I don't think consciousness involves any object "out there". Consciousness involves name-form: " vinnana paccaya nama-rupam".I don't think we are conscious of something apart from nama-rupa. There is just consciousness in consciousness - which arises dependent upon other things.Consciousness does not need an "I" and "something" out there.

The way I understand we should not take categories (study guides) as the real.Mind and matter are interrelated and inter dependence hence inseparable.We may say North America and South America are two separate things. But they are the part of the same world.The following article may help you to understand the Dependent Origination.

reflection wrote:I think the MN43 quote is not that you can't understand some differences between perception and consciousness, but that you can't have one without the other. No painting without canvas, that sort of idea.

I broadly agree, but I don't think there is a mutual dependence - I'd say that perception depends upon consciousness, but not necessarily the other way round. Consider the meditative state of "cessation of perception and feeling", for example.

"I ride tandem with the random, Things don't run the way I planned them, In the humdrum."Peter Gabriel lyric